Jim Rogers keynote speaker

Jim Rogers was a Wall Street legend long before he wrote his first best seller, Investment Biker. In the 1970’s, he made what he describes as “more money than I knew existed in the world,” managing the Quantum Fund, earning profiles in such books as The New Money Masters, Market Wizards and Money Masters of Our Time. Since retiring at age 37, he has invested his own funds, been a finance professor at Columbia University, hosted television programs on WCBS, FNN and CNBC, and written columns for Worth and Men’s Journal.

But Rogers is also renowned for being cut from a different cloth than most people on Wall Street. Not satisfied with an earlier record-setting trip around the world atop a motorcycle, for which TIME called him the “Indiana Jones of finance,” Rogers embarked with his fiancée, Paige Parker, and a one-of-a-kind Mercedes Benz, on a new adventure to chronicle the world during the turn of the Millennium–1999-2001. They completed the 116-country, 152,000-mile overland trip, setting another Guinness World Record and getting married along the way. Rogers writes about his amazing travels and discoveries in Adventure Capitalist: How I Drove Around the World for Three Years in a Yellow Mercedes, Visited 116 Countries, Invested Globally, Set a Guinness World Record, and Ate an Iguana, which was published in Spring 2003. His other books include Hot Commodities: How Anyone Can Invest Profitable in the World’s Best Market and the latest one, A Bull in China, released in December 2007.

Roger’s previous trip around the world was no less impressive. As a small-town southern boy (his hometown was so small that his family’s phone number was just “5”) with a passion for motorcycling, Rogers had always dreamed of taking a trip around the world on his bike. In 1990 he did just that, setting out not only to travel, but to learn about the world’s developing countries and investment markets first hand. It took nearly two years, but he drove 65,067 miles on land and traveled thousands more by sea, air, barge and rail across six continents, setting a world record for land travel along the way. Investment Biker was the story of this extraordinary trip and the world economy–getting to the heart of what drives successful nations and economies upward and what sends troubled ones downward.

During both of his exhilarating trips, Rogers talked to businessmen, bankers, investors and local citizens in order to get a better sense of each country’s infrastructure and investment possibilities. It’s no wonder, then, that he has racked up huge profits in markets that Wall Street didn’t know existed; unlike most people, he actually visits these places before he invests.

Bringing these journeys to life at the lecture podium, Rogers offers individuals and corporations alike a lively, ground-level analysis of tomorrow’s economic gold mines, while thrilling them with stories of his exciting adventures. He mixes wit with sometimes contrarian wisdom that offers new and enlightened ways to view our world.

One of the nation’s most acclaimed and successful financial experts, Rogers grew up in Demopolis, Alabama. He got started in business at the age of six, selling peanuts and soft drinks at Little League games. He graduated from Yale University and studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford University, where he discovered his love for Wall Street and investing.
After a spectacular career as a hedge fund manager and investor, Rogers is sometimes a visiting professor at Columbia University. He is a regular contributor to Worth magazine and a business correspondent for Fox News’ Your World with Neil Cavuto, in addition to CNBC. His forecasts are featured in Barron’s, Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, TIME, The Washington Post and many other domestic and international publications.